Tuesday, October 28, 2008

These are hard times to be a socialist in America. And not just because there's a bourgeois-bloated Starbucks on every other corner, thumbing its capitalist nose at the proletariat.

No, it's tough these days because you've got politicians on the right, the same guys who just helped nationalize the banking system, derisively and inaccurately calling the presidential candidate on the left a socialist. That's enough to make Karl Marx harumph in his grave.

Local communists, rarely tapped as campaign pundits, say Sen. Barack Obama and his policies stand far afield from any form of socialism they know.

John Bachtell, the Illinois organizer for Communist Party USA, sees attempts by Sen. John McCain's campaign to label Obama a socialist as both offensive to socialists and a desperate ploy to tap into fears of voters who haven't forgotten their Cold War rhetoric.

"Red baiting is really the last refuge of scoundrels," Bachtell said. "It has nothing to do with the issues that are confronting the American people right now. It's just a big diversion."

Of course that's just one man's opinion. (And everyone knows you can't trust a communist.)

The "s-word" bubbled up from the McCain campaign after Obama said, in his chat with Joe the Plumber, that he thinks "when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."

Well, that certainly sounds like the words of a Red Menace. But is it socialist?

There are about as many definitions for socialism as comedian Jeff Foxworthy has for the term "redneck."

So, how do you know if you're a socailist?

Generally, it involves espousing government control over a country's basic industries, like transportation, communication and energy, while also allowing some government regulation of private industries.

"Obama is about as far from being a socialist as Joe The Plumber is from being a rocket scientist," said Darrell West, director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution. "I think it's hard for McCain to call Obama a socialist when George Bush is nationalizing banks."

And this from Bruce Carruthers, a sociology professor at Northwestern University: "Obama is like a center-liberal Democrat, and he is certainly not looking to overthrow capitalism. My goodness, he wouldn't have the support of someone like The Wizard of Omaha, Warren Buffet, if he truly was going to overthrow capitalism."

Bottom line: pure capitalism and socialism can be a difficult mix.

Which hits at the heart of the problem. Right now, with the economy in the tank, the idea of a little wealth sharing doesn't sound so bad to people whose 401k plans are worth less than the contents of their coin jars.

"The idea of closing that wealth gap, I think, is a concern for many, many Americans," said Teresa Albano, editor of the Chicago-based People's Weekly World, a communist newspaper. "I don't think people are going to respond negatively to the idea of spreading around the wealth."

Which is not to say that, by electing Obama, the country will gamely head down the path of socialism.

"The whole point of his policies don't really represent the political economy of the working class," said Robert Roman, who edits the newsletter of the roughly 250-member Chicago chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. "Obama's going to be a person who represents all of us, he's going to be representing the interest of the capitalists as well as the working people. He's not really talking about transforming society beyond capitalism."

But don't worry, Sen. Obama. You're still likely to win the vote of avowed socialists.

"Having Obama as president would be greatly superior, from our point of view, than having McCain as president," Roman said.

Monday, October 27, 2008

John McCain, who has harshly criticized the idea of sitting down with dictators without pre-conditions, appears to have done just that. In 1985, McCain traveled to Chile for a friendly meeting with Chile's military ruler, General Augusto Pinochet, one of the world's most notorious violators of human rights credited with killing more than 3,000 civilians and jailing tens of thousands of others.

The private meeting between McCain and dictator Pinochet has gone previously un-reported anywhere.

According to a declassified U.S. Embassy cable secured by The Huffington Post, McCain described the meeting with Pinochet "as friendly and at times warm, but noted that Pinochet does seem obsessed with the threat of communism." McCain, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee at the time, made no public or private statements critical of the dictatorship, nor did he meet with members of the democratic opposition in Chile, as far as could be determined from a thorough check of U.S. and Chilean newspaper records and interviews with top opposition leaders.

At the time of the meeting, in the late afternoon of December 30, the U.S. Justice Department was seeking the extradition of two close Pinochet associates for an act of terrorism in Washington DC, the 1976 assassination of former ambassador to the U.S. and former Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier. The car bombing on Sheridan Circle in the U.S. capital was widely described at the time as the most egregious act of international terrorism perpetrated on U.S. soil by a foreign power.

At the time of McCain's meeting with Pinochet, Chile's democratic opposition was desperately seeking support from democratic leaders around the world in an attempt to pressure Pinochet to allow a return to democracy and force a peaceful end to the dictatorship, already in its 12th year. Other U.S. congressional leaders who visited Chile made public statements against the dictatorship and in support of a return to democracy, at times becoming the target of violent pro-Pinochet demonstrations.

Senator Edward Kennedy arrived only 12 days after McCain in a highly public show of support for democracy. Demonstrators pelted his entourage with eggs and blocked the road from the airport, so that the Senator had to be transported by helicopter to the city, where he met with Catholic church and human rights leaders and large groups of opposition activists.

Mark Schneider, a foreign policy aide and former State Department human rights official who organized Kennedy's trip, said he had no idea McCain had been there only days before. "It would be very surprising and disappointing if Senator McCain went to Chile to meet with a dictator and did not forcefully demand a return to democracy and then to publicly call for a return to democracy," Schneider said.

McCain's visit with Pinochet took place at a moment when the Chilean strongman held virtually unrestricted dictatorial power and those involved in public, democratic opposition were exposed to great risk.

McCain's presence in Chile was apparently kept as quiet as possible. He and his wife Cindy arrived December 27 and traveled immediately to the scenic Puyehue area of southern Chile to spend several days as the guest of a prominent Pinochet backer, Marco Cariola, who later was elected senator for the conservative UDI party.

The trip was arranged by Chile's ambassador to the United States, Hernan Felipe Errazuriz. According to a contemporary government document obtained from Chile, Errazuriz arranged for a special government liaison to help McCain while in Chile for the "strictly private" visit, and described him as "one of the conservative congressmen who is closest to our embassy."

Errazuriz also arranged the invitation for the McCains to stay at the farm of his wealthy friend, Marco Cariola, according to Cariola, who did not know McCain previously. The McCains spent the three and a half days fishing for salmon and trout and riding horses. The area is one of Chile's most beautiful tourist attractions, with dozens of crystal clear lakes and rivers surrounded by luxurious estates such as the Cariola farm where the McCains were staying.

On December 30, McCain traveled back to Santiago for a 5 pm meeting with dictator Pinochet, followed by a meeting with Admiral Jose Toribio Merino, a member of the country's ruling military junta.

McCain's meeting with Pinochet in 1985 are described in a U.S. embassy cable, based on McCain's debriefing with embassy officials:

"Most of his 30-minute meeting with the president, at which foreign minister [Jaime] Del Valle and a ministry staff member were present, was spent in discussing the dangers of communism, a subject about which the president seems obsessed. The President described Chile's recent history in the fight against communism and displayed considerable pride in the fact that the communist menace had been defeated in Chile. The President stressed that Chile had stood alone in this battle, and complained that United States Foreign Policy had left them stranded. The congressman added that talking to Pinochet was somewhat similar to talking with the head of the John Birch Society."

Other than to describe the warmth of the encounter, the cable does not contain any account of what McCain said to Pinochet. There is no indication that the subject of human rights or return to democracy was raised with Pinochet. At this time in history, Pinochet was overtly ostracized by most world democratic leaders because of his refusal to move toward a restoration of democratic, civilian rule.

A second declassified U.S. diplomatic cable refers to a letter from then-U.S. Ambassador Harry Barnes giving further detail of McCain's meeting with Pinochet.

From his meeting with junta member Merino, however, McCain passed on an tidbit of political intelligence that the embassy found useful. "The most interesting part of the conversation, according to the congressman, was Merino's statement that he and other members of the Junta had recently told Pinochet that he should not expect any support from the junta if he should decide to be a candidate for president in 1989."

In fact, three years later Pinochet was defeated in a plebiscite in which he was the only candidate, and free elections a year later restored democratic government. A healthy list of U.S. congressmen traveled to Chile in support of the transition to democracy, including Republican Senator Richard Lugar. McCain, by then a first term senator, did not return to Chile.In addition to the Chilean document and the U.S. cable cited above, at least four other declassified documents refer to McCain's meeting with Pinochet and his interest in Chile.

McCain campaign press office said no one was available to comment on the story.

Former ambassador Errazuriz, reached by phone, said repeatedly "it is not true" that McCain met with Pinochet, that he would have known about it if it had, and that the state Department cable was possibly a fabrication.

On September 11, 1973, Army General Pinochet led a bloody coup that overthrew the democratically elected government of President Salvador Allende. The four-man military junta that seized power bombed the presidential palace, padlocked the congress, outlawed all political activity and actively persecuted its opponents. Pinochet remained in power until 1990 and in 2006 he was charged with 36 counts of kidnapping, 23 counts of torture and one count of murder. He was spared a trial for health reasons and died at age 91 in December 2006.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

For a month, since the U.S. and Bolivia took turns expelling one another's ambassadors (Bolivia went first), the diplomatic war between Washington and La Paz has continued unabated.

Now President Bush, in his efforts to strike out against Bolivian President Evo Morales, has decided to take economic hostages. Last month, and again in Washington yesterday, Mr. Bush declared his intention to destroy the jobs of more than 20,000 innocent Bolivian workers, by axing Bolivia out of a trade plan originally developed under his father. To do so would be a mistake – morally, diplomatically and economically.

Some Background

Nearly two decades ago, under the first President Bush, the U.S. began the Andean Trade Preference Act (ATPDEA). That program offers Bolivia and a handful of other Latin American nations reduced U.S. tarriffs, allowing them to develop new industries and jobs exporting products such as textiles and handmade furniture. For the U.S., the aim is to create opportunities for employment as an to alternative to growing coca for the illegal drug market.

In September, as part of the Bush administration's diplomatic battles with Bolivian President Evo Morales, President Bush announced that he will use his executive authority eliminate Bolivia's participation in those trade preferences.

The actual victims of President Bush’s move, however, won't be President Morales, but women and men who eke out modest livings as weavers, jewelry-makers and carpenters, creating products for U.S. markets. The U.S. Congress knows that, and just two weeks ago approved a six-month extension for Bolivia. But yesterday in Washington President Bush repeated his intent to sidestep Congress and use his powers to cut Bolivian workers out of the program.

Listen to the Voices of the People who Will be Affected by Bush's Plan

We profiled some of these workers for our new book, Dignity and Defiance, and after President Bush’s announcement last month we traveled out across Bolivia to ask them how his threat would affect their lives.

Today we have posted a five-minute video of their own words here on the Blog. Take a moment now and hear what they have to say by clicking on the screen above.

The Democracy Center also demanded and won the right to have their video testimony from Bolivia played next week in Washington when the Bush administation holds the public hearing required by law before he implements his plan. Administration officials told us that this will be the first time that video testimony like this has been played in such a proceeding.

On October 23 in Washington, those officials will hear directly from people like Joaquín Aquino, a carpenter in his 50s who hand-makes furniture for the U.S. market and Natalia Alanoca Condori, a 28-year-old mother who makes clothing sold in American stores. These are the people, along with thousands others like them, who will be the real victims of President Bush's actions against Bolivia.

What You Can Do to Help

We have an opportunity and an obligation to these workers to take action and help stop President Bush's plan. Here are three simple ways that you can help:

1. Share this request for action with others

All across the United States there are people and organizations that care about making U.S. policy in Latin America more just. Help us spread the word about the need to act on this now, by forwarding this Blog post to others.

2. Sign the Democracy Center's Online Petition

You can directly add your voice to the campaign to stop President Bush's threat against Bolivian workers. In less than sixty seconds right now you can add your name to an online petition that the Democracy Center will be submitting as part of the formal public record against Bush's anti-Bolivia policy. Sign that petition here. If your organization wants to join the petition please send us an email telling us so at: Bolivia@democracyctr.org.

We need your petition endorsements no later than midnight October 30.

3. Submit Formal Comments to the Bush Administration

If you or your organization want to do more, federal law guarantees the right to submit formal comments to the Bush administration's Trade Representative. To do that you must submit your comments by e-mail no later than 5pm on October 31. Those comments must be sent in the form of an attachment and must include the subject line, “Review of Bolivia’s Designation as a Beneficiary Country Under the ATPA and ATPDEA.” The address is: FR0812@ustr.eop.gov. You must also include in the attachment a cover letter with your name, address, telephone number and e-mail address.

Even if we can't make President Bush back down on his plan to put Bolivians out of work, taking action now helps build the case for Congress and the new President to reverse it. Those leaders need to see that people in the U.S. care about this issue.

Raising Up Voices from Latin America

President Bush's move against the Bolivian people is just one more example of how we, as citizens, need to not only change leaders but also change the political winds that drive U.S. policy toward Latin America. To help do that the Democracy Center is launching a new campaign – Voices from Latin America.

Voices from Latin America marries new technology and old-fashioned organizing to build a bridge between citizens in the U.S. and Latin America. It is a platform from which we can work together to help educate one another and take joint action, like the one we are starting today on Bush's assault on Bolivian workers. On the website you will find:

Briefing papers (in English and Spanish) on some of the main issues in U.S./Latin America relations, on topics such as trade, the 'U.S. war on drugs', and immigration.

Video testimonies from across the region in which people tell how U.S. policy affects their lives and their nations.

How to get involved, and real examples from people who have.

As citizens we have to be educated and involved in U.S foreign policy in ways that we never have before. That includes making sure that the people in other countries who are so affected by what the U.S. does have their voices heard in the U.S. Help us do that by visiting the Voices from Latin America web site here.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/valley/la-me-huerta22-2008oct22,0,4250756.storyFrom the Los Angeles TimesVeteran activist shows support for immigrant rights protestersDolores Huerta tells group fasting in Olvera Plaza that they are fighting for the future of their children, immigrants, California and the nation.By Anna Gorman

October 22, 2008

As the immigrant rights protesters finished their first week of fasting, longtime activist Dolores Huerta on Tuesday came to Olvera Plaza to show her support.

She told the crowd that they were fasting for the future of immigrants and their children, but also for the future of California and the nation.

"Let's all join in this spiritual movement, the movement for justice for our immigrants," she said.

Then she reminded them to drink lots of water and led them in a chant: "¡Que viva los immigrantes! ¡Que viva Cesar Chavez!"

About 30 people are camping out in downtown Los Angeles to mobilize 1 million Latinos to vote and to call upon the new administration to stop the raids and legalize the nation's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants. Some are fasting only for a day, while others have pledged to participate for 21 days, until the presidential election. The crowd swelled during the weekend, but many returned to school and work Monday.

Though some of the fasters are undocumented, others are legal residents and U.S. citizens.

During the day, the protesters pray, sing, read and organize. At night, they bed down in tents across the street from Union Station.

They also staged a mock raid and are planning a march to a downtown detention center.

Organizers said that with the election approaching, they wanted to re-energize the movement that brought hundreds of thousands to the streets in 2006.

One of the fasters, Elvis Prado, 21, said he hopes that the fast will encourage people to vote with immigrant rights in mind. Illegal immigrants worry about being detained, deported and separated from their families.

"People deserve to not live in fear," said Prado, a UCLA student who was born in the United States.

Prado said his family and friends are surprised about his involvement but that they have been supportive.

"I've never been part of something like this," he said.

Antonio Beltran, 27, who gave only his second last name, said he graduated from Cal State Northridge and owns a furniture design business but is in the United States illegally. Beltran said he has been disappointed during this presidential campaign.

"Neither candidate is talking about immigration," he said. "We need to fast to bring awareness and to bring the discussion again to immigration."

Beltran said he plans to only drink water until the end, but that he is already thinking about what he will eat after the election -- mole poblano and handmade tortillas.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Rigoberta Menchú, Nobel Prize winner and outspoken advocate for human rights in Guatemala and elsewhere in Las Americas, will speak at Delta College's Tillie Lewis Theater in Stockton on October 22 from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. She is a survivor of the Reagan administration-engineered genocide of the Mayan people in Guatemala.

The genocide occurred under the "scorched earth" policy of the "born again butcher," Jose Efrain Rios Montt. One of the most vicious tyrants in recent Guatemalan history, Rios Montt was the U.S. backed general, dictator, and a former president from 1982-83. A graduate of the U.S. Army School of the Americas, he was proud of his political philosophy of "beans for the obedient; bullets for the rest."

Saturday, October 18, 2008

FEDERAL, STATE AND LOCAL FORCES CLASH WITH TEACHERS AND SUPPORTERS ONMORELOS HIGHWAY; DISSIDENT TEACHERS CALL FOR INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT

As the teachers' strike in Morelos, south of Mexico City, nears thetwo-month mark, supporters in the Coordinadora Nacional deTrabajadores de la Educación (CNTE), the best-organized dissidentfaction of the national union, the SNTE, installed a human blockade infront of the national office of the Department of Education in MexicoCity.

CNTE spokesperson Artemio Ortiz Hurtado said:"Not even with force can they convince us that their reforms are toimprove the quality of education. What this is about is openprivatization, where neither teachers nor parents are considered." Hewent to state the the CNTE will denounce "all repressive acts againstMexican teachers, but especially those of Morelos. Toward this end, wewill look for contact with various social organizations and groups ofintellectuals and ask that they join with us in internationalexpressions of protest."

Ortiz Hurtado spoke in the aftermath of an attack on Thursday, October9 by two thousand forces including state, federal and local militaryand police forces with tanks, against parents who had blocked ahighway in Xoxocotla, 40 miles south of Cuernavaca, for 11 days insupport of striking teachers. There were 16 arrests, ten injuries, andreports of warrantless house-to-house searches (Twin Cities style) andthe disappearance of at least five residents. This was the third suchpolice-military action in Morelos during the week.

Teachers in Cuernavaca and other communities remain camped out in theplazas of their communities, though there is talk of a negociatedsettlement to unblock certain Cuernavaca streets and sidewalks at therequest of storekeepers.

DISSIDENT TEACHERS ON STRIKE IN MEXICO, MAINTAIN TENT CITY ON DOWNTOWNCUERNAVACA

Twenty thousand of the 25,000 of the teachers in the state of Morelos,an hour south of Mexico City, have been on strike since the schoolyear started August 18. According to La Jornada de Morelos, a localoutlet of the national left newspaper La Jornada, the decision to walkout came spontaneously. Teachers in Morelos are members of Section 19of the Sindicato National de Trabajadores de la Educación (SNTE). Theyargue that the general secretary of the section was imposed by thenational union leadership and doesn't represent them. (SNTE presidentElba Esther Gordillo imposed new directors on the dissident Section 9in Mexico City just before the strike in Morelos started. She changedthe site of the convention so many times that the real delegatescouldn't arrive, and a group of non-teachers hastily "elected" anon-representative slate.)

Teachers were asked to attend assemblies in their towns and regionsfor a presentation of the Alianza por la Calidad Educativa(ACE—alliance for quality in education), a deal that had just beenannounced by the "illegitimate" president, Felipe Calderón, hissecretary of education, self-help book author Josefina Vázquez Mota,and Gordillo. (Many of us criticized the late American Federation ofTeachers president Al Shanker for racebaiting, for redbaiting, forperpetuating himself in power; Gordillo makes Shanker look like Mr.Rogers.)

The ACE, which is an "agreement," not a law, mandates testing ofteachers, a new, more all-enc Teachers in Morelos attended theassemblies in August to be informed about the ACE, but they began towalk out of the assemblies and organize, and soon they were campingout in the plazas of most cities and towns in the state, blockinghighways and, conversely, occupying toll booths from time to time andletting people pass free. (The highway from Mexico City to Acapulcopasses through Morelos.) In Cuernavaca, capital and biggest city ofthe state, the state house is on the main plaza, now occupied at anygiven moment by hundreds or thousands of teachers. They are subject toa negative campaign on the part of the state and federal governmentsand most news media. One tactic is to call them lazy and selfish, towhich they reply that it would be easier to be at home and at schoolthan to be camping on the street during the rainy season.

The ACE is an "agreement", not a law, encompassing standardized testfor students, punishment for schools whose students don't attain highscores, and various other "reforms" modeled after the ones that areworking so well in U.S. urban schools. It also contains some changesin hiring procedures that on the surface would seem like progress,like eliminating the practice of teachers' transferring theirpositions to their children or even selling them. (These practiceswere invented by people like Gordillo, who now denounce them asaberrant and the work of amateurs. Some teachers, beat down by lowsalaries, cling to any "benefit" they have.) Normal school graduates,who historically have been guaranteed jobs, now will be hired only ifthey score well on the new test.

When teacher test results were announced, normal school graduates hadgenerally scored lower than private school graduates. This promptedGordillo to announce, with the president and secretary of educationstanding by subserviently, a plan to close normal schools and convertthem into vocational schools that would train the same students towork in tourism. After the protests began, she denied having saidthis, in an apparent attempt to pacify the dissidents.

Unlike their comrades in Oaxaca in 2006, the teachers of Morelos had,until last week, escaped police repression but, also unlike theircounterparts in Oaxaca, they've made few alliances with parents,students or the public at large, with the notable exception ofcommunities like Xoxocotla. One of the reasons appears to be that theyare unable or unwilling to rebut the claim of some news media thattheir principal or only demand is to keep the right to will theirpositions to their children. A tour of the tent city in Cuernavaca onSeptember 15, when there were about 2,000 teachers on the streets in asix-to-eight-block area, turned up a few signs claiming this "right,"many opposing the ACE in general terms, many demanding recognition ofthe economic rights of teachers, many attacking Gordillo and her localcounterpart, a few invoking the revolutionary legacy of EmilianoZapata and thus of the state of Morelos (rural teacher Otilio Montañohelped Zapata write the Plan de Ayala in 1911). The banners that spokedirectly about education attacked the latent privatization ofchildren's education and of teacher training that the ACE represents.

Teachers in Mexico City and various other states, especiallyMichoacán, Baja California Sur, Yucatán, and Guerrero, are engaging insimilar battles in their regions.

Elba Esther Gordillo, SNTE president, is a special case. In 2003, shewas elected Secretary General of the Partido de la RevoluciónInstitucional (PRI), while retaining the leadership of the union. Shewas then elected to the Congress where she became the coordinator ofthe PRI, a position akin to that of majority leader. (The PRI was theruling party for many years until the election of Vicente Fox of thePAN in 2000 and still wields enormous power in many states.) Aninternal PRI conflict forced Gordillo out of the congressionalleadership. She disappeared for awhile to her multi-million dollarhome in San Diego (bought with guess who's dues?) and later emerged asthe founder of a new party, PANAL, whose voters and candidates tend tobe teachers still loyal to hack unionism.

In the 2006 presidential elections, Gordillo forged an alliancebetween the PANAL and the PAN to oppose her old PRI rival RobertoMadrazo and the left populist candidacy of Andrés Manuel LópezObrador. The film Fraude: México 2006, directed by Luis Mandoki andreleased this month in the U.S. (possibly under another name),documents how Gordillo called PRI governors during the final hours ofopen polling centers on election day and told them things like: "ThePRI is finished I suggest that you call Felipe (Calderón) and sell himwhat you've got."

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

We write to offer our congratulations on your campaign and to express our hope that as the next president of the United States you will take advantage of an historic opportunity to improve relations with Latin America. As scholars of the region, we also wish to convey our analysis regarding the process of change now underway in Latin America.

Just as the people of the United States have begun to debate basic questions regarding the sort of society they want-- thanks in part to your own candidacy but also owing to the magnitude of the current financial crisis-- so too have the people of Latin America. In fact, a recent round of intense debate about a just and fair society has been going on in Latin America for more than a decade, and the majority are opting, like you and so many of us in the United States, for hope and change. As academics personally and professionally committed to development and democracy in Latin America, we are hopeful that during your presidency the United States can become a partner rather than an adversary to the positive changes already under way in the hemisphere.

The current impetus for change in Latin America is a rejection of the model of economic growth that has been imposed in most countries since the early 1980s, a model that has concentrated wealth, relied unsuccessfully on unrestricted market forces to solve deep social problems and undermined human welfare. The current rejection of this model is broad-based and democratic. In fact, contemporary movements for change in Latin America reveal significantly increased participation by workers and peasants, women, Afro-descendants and indigenous peoples-- in a word, the grassroots. Such movements are coming to power in country after country. They are neither puppets, nor blinded by fanaticism and ideology, as caricatured by some mainstream pundits. To the contrary, these movements deserve our respect, friendship and support.

Latin Americans have often viewed the United States not as a friend but as an oppressor, the guarantor of an international economic system that works against them, rather than for them-- the very antithesis of hope and change. The Bush Administration has made matters much worse, and U.S. prestige in the region is now at a historic low. Washington's tendency to fight against hope and change has been especially prominent in recent U.S. responses to the democratically elected governments of Venezuela and Bolivia. While anti-American feelings run deep, history demonstrates that these feelings can change. In the 1930s, after two decades of conflict with the region, the United States swore off intervention and adopted a Good Neighbor Policy. Not coincidentally, it was the most harmonious time in the history of U.S.-Latin American relations. In the 1940s, every country in the region became our ally in World War Two. It can happen again.

There are many other challenges, too. Colombia, the main focus of the Bush Administration's policy, is currently the scene of the second largest humanitarian crisis in the world, with four million internally displaced people. Its government, which criminalizes even peaceful protest, seeks an extension of the free trade policies that much of the hemisphere is already reacting against. Cuba has begun a process of transition that should be supported in positive ways, such as through the dialogue you advocate. Mexicans and Central Americans migrate by the tens of thousands to seek work in the United States, where their labor power is much needed but their presence is denigrated by a public that has, since the development of opinion polling in the 1930s, always opposed immigration from anywhere. The way to manage immigration is not by building a giant wall, but rather, the United States should support more equitable economic development in Mexico and Central America and, indeed, throughout the region. In addition, the U.S. must reconsider drug control policies that have simply not worked and have been part of the problem of political violence, especially in Mexico, Colombia and Peru. And the U.S. must renew its active support for human rights throughout the region. Unfortunately, in the eyes of many Latin Americans, the United States has come to stand for the support of inequitable regimes.

Finally, we implore you to commit your administration to the firm support of constitutional rights, including academic and intellectual freedom. Most of us are members of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), the largest professional association of experts on the region, and we have experienced first-hand how the Bush administration's attempt to restrict academic exchange with Cuba is counter-productive and self-defeating. We hope for an early opportunity to discuss this and other issues regarding Latin America with your administration.

Our hope is that you will embrace the opportunity to inaugurate a new period of hemispheric understanding and collaboration for the common welfare. We ask for change and not only in the United States.

Sincerely,

SIGNED:

Eric Hershberg, LASA President 2007-09, Professor of Politics andDirector of Latin American Studies, Simon Fraser University

Eduardo Issa from Social and Indigenous Organisations Coalition of Bolivia

Mery Mollar Coalition in Defense of Water and Life from Cochabamba Bolivia

Marcelo Chimbolema, From CONAIE Ecuador

Representative from Mapuche Communities from Chile

Representative from Colombia

From Asia Pacific:

Maori Communities

West Papua

Papua New Guinea

Boungainville

others...

From Australia:

From Northern Territory, South Australia,`New South Wales and Victorian Communities

www.latinlasnet.org/gathering/freedom.html

Our Call

The Latin American Solidarity Network (LASNET), Friends of the Earth (FOE) in conjunction with other solidarity organisations will be hosting a gathering for Indigenous and non-Indigenous activists who are supporting Indigenous and popular graassroots organisations resistances and struggles against dominant elites.

We hope to bring together activists, indigenous leaders and communities from Aotearoa (New Zealand), Great Turtle Island (North America), Melanesia and the Pacific Islands, and our Indigenous brothers and sisters from Latin America, as well as from the Aboriginal nations of Australia.

This is a time of great struggle for Indigenous peoples. On September 13th 2007, the governments of Canada, the United States, New Zealand and Australia voted against the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which calls on countries to give more control to tribal peoples over the land and resources they traditionally possessed, and to return confiscated territory, pay compensation, or at least say “sorry” for all the abuses.

It is not hard to see why. New Zealand’s government has just unleashed its anti-terror security forces on Maori activists in New Zealand, while the Australian government reinvaded Aboriginal land in the Northern Territory under the guise of “child” protection. Both these governments use their influence in the Pacific, Melanesia and the Pacific islands to open up Aboriginal lands to Multinationals mining interests.

Throughout the Americas, from Great Turtle Island down through Latin America, from the Tahltan of Canada to the Mapuche of Chile/Argentina, from the Quechua /Aymara to the Kulin, Wotjobaluk, Mara and Kurnai Nations of Australia in the south, Indigenous peoples are under greater pressure than ever from multinational corporations’ interests (including mining, forestry, fuel), free trade agreements and the security apparatus of settler governments, determined to finally put an end to centuries of struggle against dominant elites and against economic rationalism in the form of neoliberal capital policies.

Indigenous peoples and popular organisations are fighting back, organising, and teaching new generations what they have learned from hundreds of years of unending struggle against land expropriation, exploitation, assimilation and the various attempts to wipe them out from our planet.

Gathering (Encuentro)/Conference Contents:

The Gathering (Encuentro) aims to build bridges of struggle, friendship and collaboration between Indigenous and grassroots organisations throughout Latin America and Australasia.

During the first two days of the Gathering (October 23 and 24) there will be a welcome to country and a public meeting. The second two days (October 25 and 26) will feature plenary sessions, workshops, documentary films, photo exhibitions, stalls and other activities.

Participants from Australia and overseas will explore the questions of WHY and HOW we resist and struggle to protect our planet and defend our communities, and WHAT we propose as Indigenous people and supporters from grassroots and community organisations to achieve social transformation..

Topics to be discussed include:

Genocide suffered by Aboriginal nations

Autonomous struggles

Ancestral rights to land and culture

Sovereignty and the global order

Sovereignty and neo-liberal policies

Land sovereignty and nation

Aboriginal control of Aboriginal affairs

Human rights/Aboriginal rights

Fighting racism

Peace

Treaty or/and reconciliation, and

Other topics presented by Gathering participants.

Our idea is to be open and inclusive to ideas and discourses supporting Indigenous peoples’ self-determination and grassroots struggles for justice, peace, dignity and democracy from below. We would like to develop the concept of an alliance between Indigenous and non- Indigenous marginalised people as they share similar problems of exclusion, exploitation, racism, repression.

We are inviting individuals and organisations to support this initiative by contributing to our organising fund, and by supporting the Gathering itself when it takes place October 2008.

Costs are significant as there are several international airfares to cover, and therefore any contributions would be appreciated.

If your organisation be able to provide some assistance or be interested to becoming a Gathering supporter or sponsor write to us to P.OBOX 813 North Melbourne, VIC. 3051 or to infogathering@latinlasnet.org

Thursday, October 02, 2008

There is a struggle underway in Bolivia which has beenlargely overlooked or misrepresented in the mainstreamcircles in the USA. For the first time ever in Bolivia,the majority of the population exercises its rights asfully recognized citizens through electoral and civicparticipation. Efforts to battle poverty andilliteracy, the largest societal ills, are underway.Indian families, who for centuries suffered theconsequences of racist policies, including economicdeprivation, and physical violence, (much like AfricanAmericans, Latinos, Asians and Native Americans in theUSA) are finally respected and recovering theirdignity.

While one would have hoped for enthusiasm here at home,the response to Bolivia's efforts within establishmentpolitical circles in the USA has been less thanwelcoming. Under the leadership of Evo Morales, thatcountry's first Indian president, Bolivia is pursuing anational economic development plan to uplift all of itscitizens. According to a 2005 United Nation DevelopmentProgramme report, at least six out of ten Bolivianshave incomes below the poverty line, and wealthpolarization is very significant between those at thebottom, and the rich elite which has traditionallydominated Bolivian society. The infant mortality ratefares no better and is one of the worst in the region.Faced with this reality, the Bolivian governmentunderstands that rectifying its historical inequalitiesis no small feat, but nevertheless, a necessary one forthe nation to advance.

In North America in the late 1800's, the ConfederateStates of America seceded from the United States ofAmerica and waged a bloody civil war against the North.Wealthy landowners plotted to keep the wealth of theSouth to themselves and out of the hands of Northernindustrialists who were developing the nation at arapid pace. While the retention of economic andpolitical power by Southern elites was the real issueat hand, racist arguments and slavery (the basis fortheir wealth) were used to justify their treasonousactions to the world.

Today, an analogous secessionist movement is underwayin Bolivia's wealthiest region, Santa Cruz. After areferendum vote recently ratified Evo Morales asBolivia's democratically elected president by anoverwhelming majority, there should be no more supportgiven to such illegal measures. This province holdsabundant natural resources and much of Bolivia's wealthis derived from its natural gas, farmland, iron ore,water and forests. As their constitution reads, theseriches should be used for the development of the entiresociety, not for the benefit of a few.

Currently, democracy is on the line as a small sectorof opposition actors known to use racist violenceagainst the poor, have called for the overthrow of thepresident and for secession. They have done so byutilizing the national media which has mobilized themost radical right-wing sectors to take to the streetsand engage in civil disobedience. Unfortunately, theseactions have been all but civil, including theinstigation of violence. Although the BushAdministration has chosen to stand by those calling tosecede and in so doing support the most racist andbackward elements of Bolivian society, it is the hopeof fair and genuinely democratic-minded people thatBolivia's right to sovereignty and respect for itsconstitution will be honored by the United States.

Secession, and the balkanization of Bolivia would be adisaster for the people of Bolivia (and the region),just as such processes have been disasters in Easternand Central Europe, Africa and Central Asia. Thenation-state is tasked with helping to redistribute thewealth of a country. In those countries withenlightened leaders, such redistribution pays attentionto historic injustices that must be repaired. For thisreason, we in the USA should be very careful beforeresponding favorably to abstract calls for democracythat actually hide the ambitions of the wealthy elites.After all, in our own history the Confederate States ofAmerica claimed that they were fighting a war againstNorthern alleged aggression and oppression. Mosthistories, however, tell a very different story.

We in the USA should respect Bolivia's right to self-determination and refrain from unhelpful interference.Just as the struggle against secession in North Americabetween 1861-65 was an internal matter for the peopleof the USA to settle, so too is it for the people ofBolivia today.______

BlackCommentator.com Executive Editor, Bill Fletcher,Jr., is the Executive Editor of BlackCommentator.com, aSenior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies,the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum andco-author of the book, Solidarity Divided: The Crisisin Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice(University of California Press), which examines thecrisis of organized labor in the USA.

During the past decade, Latin America has become themost exciting region of the world. The dynamic has verylargely flowed from right where you are meeting, inCaracas, with the election of a leftist presidentdedicated to using Venezuela's rich resources for thebenefit of the population rather than for wealth andprivilege at home and abroad, and to promote theregional integration that is so desperately needed as aprerequisite for independence, for democracy, and formeaningful development. The initiatives taken inVenezuela have had a significant impact throughout thesubcontinent, what has now come to be called "the pinktide." The impact is revealed within the individualcountries, most recently Paraguay, and in the regionalinstitutions that are in the process of formation.Among these are the Banco del Sur, an initiative thatwas endorsed here in Caracas a year ago by Nobellaureate in economics Joseph Stiglitz; and the ALBA,the Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America and theCaribbean, which might prove to be a true dawn if itsinitial promise can be realized.

The ALBA is often described as an alternative to theUS-sponsored "Free Trade Area of the Americas," thoughthe terms are misleading. It should be understood to bean independent development, not an alternative. And,furthermore, the so-called "free trade agreements" haveonly a limited relation to free trade, or even to tradein any serious sense of that term; and they arecertainly not agreements, at least if people are partof their countries. A more accurate term would be"investor-rights arrangements," designed bymultinational corporations and banks and the powerfulstates that cater to their interests, establishedmostly in secret, without public participation orawareness. That is why the US executive regularly callsfor "fast-track authority" for these agreements -essentially, Kremlin-style authority.

Another regional organization that is beginning to takeshape is UNASUR, the Union of South American Nations.This continental bloc, modeled on the European Union,aims to establish a South American parliament inCochabamba, a fitting site for the UNASUR parliament.Cochabamba was not well known internationally beforethe water wars of 2000. But in that year events inCochabamba became an inspiration for people throughoutthe world who are concerned with freedom and justice,as a result of the courageous and successful struggleagainst privatization of water, which awakenedinternational solidarity and was a fine and encouragingdemonstration of what can be achieved by committedactivism.

The aftermath has been even more remarkable. Inspiredin part by developments in Venezuela, Bolivia hasforged an impressive path to true democratization inthe hemisphere, with large-scale popular initiativesand meaningful participation of the organized majorityof the population in establishing a government andshaping its programs on issues of great importance andpopular concern, an ideal that is rarely approachedelsewhere, surely not in the Colossus of the North,despite much inflated rhetoric by doctrinal managers.

Much the same had been true 15 years earlier in Haiti,the only country in the hemisphere that surpassesBolivia in poverty - and like Bolivia, was the sourceof much of the wealth of Europe, later the UnitedStates. In 1990, Haiti's first free election tookplace. It was taken for granted in the West that the UScandidate, a former World Bank official who monopolizedresources, would easily win. No one was payingattention to the extensive grass-roots organizing inthe slums and hills, which swept into power thepopulist priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Washingtonturned at once to undermining the feared and hateddemocratic government. It took only a few months for aUS-backed military coup to reverse this stunningvictory for democracy, and to place in power a regimethat terrorized the population with the direct supportof the US government, first under president Bush I,then Clinton. Washington finally permitted the electedpresident to return, but only on the condition that headhere to harsh neoliberal rules that were guaranteedto crush what remained of the economy, as they did. Andin 2004, the traditional torturers of Haiti, France andthe US, joined to remove the elected president fromoffice once again, launching a new regime of terror,though the people remain unvanquished, and the popularstruggle continues despite extreme adversity.

All of this is familiar in Latin America, not least inBolivia, the scene of today's most intense anddangerous confrontation between popular democracy andtraditional US-backed elites. Archaeologists are nowdiscovering that before the European conquest, Boliviahad a wealthy, sophisticated and complex society - toquote their words, "one of the largest, strangest, andmost ecologically rich artificial environments on theface of the planet, with causeways and canals, spaciousand formal towns and considerable wealth," creating alandscape that was "one of humankind's greatest worksof art, a masterpiece." And of course Bolivia's vastmineral wealth enriched Spain and indirectly northernEurope, contributing massively to its economic andcultural development, including the industrial andscientific revolutions. Then followed a bitter historyof imperial savagery with the crucial connivance ofrapacious domestic elites, factors that are very muchalive today.

Sixty years ago, US planners regarded Bolivia andGuatemala as the greatest threats to its domination ofthe hemisphere. In both cases, Washington succeeded inoverthrowing the popular governments, but in differentways. In Guatemala, Washington resorted to the standardtechnique of violence, installing one of the world'smost brutal and vicious regimes, which extended itscriminality to virtual genocide in the highlands duringReagan's murderous terrorist wars of the 1980s - and wemight bear in mind that these horrendous atrocitieswere carried out under the guise of a "war on terror,"a war that was re-declared by George Bush in September2001, not declared, a revealing distinction when werecall the implementation of Reagan's "war on terror"and its grim human consequences.

In Guatemala, the Eisenhower administration overcamethe threat of democracy and independent development byviolence. In Bolivia, it achieved much the sameresults by exploiting Bolivia's economic dependence onthe US, particularly for processing Bolivia's tinexports. Latin America scholar Stephen Zunes points outthat "At a critical point in the nation's effort tobecome more self-sufficient [in the early 1950s], theU.S. government forced Bolivia to use its scarcecapital not for its own development, but to compensatethe former mine owners and repay its foreign debts."

The economic policies forced on Bolivia in those yearswere a precursor of the structural adjustment programsimposed on the continent thirty years later, under theterms of the neoliberal "Washington consensus," whichhas generally had disastrous effects wherever itsstrictures have been observed. By now, the victims ofneoliberal market fundamentalism are coming to includethe rich countries, where the curse of financialliberalization is bringing about the worst financialcrisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s andleading to massive state intervention in a desperateeffort to rescue collapsing financial institutions.

U.S. lawmakers on Sunday were set to sign off on a deal to create a $700 billion government fund to buy bad debt from ailing banks in a bid to stem a credit crisis threatening the global economy.

"They want to help the banks and not help the poor," Lula said late on Saturday in Sao Paulo during a campaign rally ahead of Oct. 5 municipal elections.

"Why give $700 billion to the banks and no money to the poor guys who lost their houses," Lula asked, according to local media. He referred to the troubled U.S. housing market.

....Brazil's economy is growing by more than 5 percent annually but is expected to slow to around 4 percent growth next year. A few Brazilian exporters announced last week large derivatives losses related to currency fluctuations caused by the global financial crisis. (Reporting by Raymond Colitt; Editing by Doina Chiacu)